Suspects in Salt Lake nightclub shooting remain at large

SALT LAKE CITY — At least two suspects remained at large Sunday night after a shooting the night before at the Inferno Cantina in downtown Salt Lake City left six people injured.

Officers were dispatched to the nightclub, located at 122 Pierpont Ave, at 11:45 p.m. Saturday, Salt Lake Detective Cody Lougy said, where witnesses reported that a man had entered the cantina and opened fire before fleeing with at least one other individual in a black Cadillac CTS.

Five of the injured persons were transported by ambulance to a local hospital, Lougy said, with the sixth electing to transport themself. The injuries range from minor to serious.

"At this time we don't believe any of those injuries are life threatening but it's too early to tell," Lougy said Sunday.

The Utah Highway Patrol later recovered the suspects' vehicle, which was left abandoned near 2320 South and 1600 West, and determined it had been stolen earlier that evening in Salt Lake County.

Lougy said that as the suspects fled the shooting, they waved a handgun out the window of the Cadillac they were in and attempted to run over a security guard, who fired at the fleeing vehicle. He said it is not yet known how many rounds the security guard fired, or if anyone inside the Cadillac was injured.

"This is a very scary situation, scary for everyone involved," Lougy said. "That Club Inferno was packed with people, so you can imagine the panic in that room when shots were being fired and people were going down."

Lougy said the department's entire homicide squad had been called in to investigate the incident, but no suspects had yet been identified.

"We have hundreds of statements to go through," he said.

The club, tucked behind a few downtown hotels, was mostly empty early Sunday evening before its usual late-night crowd turned up. A group of four headed into the cantina urged one another not to talk to reporters before hurrying away.

The only other groups wandering the area were out-of-town visitors looking for a meal and who said they were unaware of the shooting. One couple entered Inferno, only to exit a moment later. They said they hadn't heard about the shooting, it simply "didn't look like the kind of place we want to eat."